The present invention relates generally to telecommunication services and more particularly to caller identification.
Telecommunications service providers typically offer services that attempt to provide customers with information that enables them to determine whether or not to accept a call before answering the call. One service that provides such information is caller identification (“Caller ID”). Standard Caller ID services generally provide a customer with an indication of who is calling without requiring the customer to answer the call. These systems typically retrieve information about the calling party from a database and provide that information to the called party. Customer premise equipment (CPE) in the form of a display device is generally used to provide the called party with a visual readout of the name and/or telephone number associated with the calling party.
However, the effectiveness of Caller ID systems can be reduced due to a number of different occurrences. One such occurrence is the inability of a service provider to provide the standard Caller ID information for a particular incoming call. A service provider may not be able to provide the standard Caller ID information if the Caller ID information is blocked by the calling party, or if the Caller ID information is unavailable or incomplete. Also, the service provider may not be able to provide the standard Caller ID information if the call is marked “Private,” indicating that the calling party has taken steps to suppress transmission of Caller ID information. This may be done, in some areas of the United States by, for example, pressing *67 when initiating a call.
When the standard Caller ID information cannot be provided, the called party is not adequately informed about who is calling and cannot determine whether or not to accept the incoming call before answering the call. Because the effectiveness of Caller ID systems is greatly reduced when information cannot be provided, there is a need for an improved system and method for providing caller identification information that overcomes these deficiencies.
Patent application Ser. No. 09/122,484, filed Jul. 24, 1998 and commonly assigned to the assignee of the present application, is incorporated herein by reference. This patent application discloses a method and system for providing a called party with audible caller identification information when standard caller identification cannot be provided. When standard caller identification cannot be provided, the call is blocked and a request for audible caller identification is transmitted to the calling party. The audible information is subsequently transmitted to the called party.
Patent application Ser. No. 09/253,339, filed Feb. 19, 1999 and commonly assigned to the assignee of the present application, illustrates in further detail implementation of this technique in a telecommunications system including Advanced Information Network (AIN) elements. This application is incorporated herein by reference.
However, some undesired calls may be received for which standard caller identification information can be provided. Some telemarketing calls include standard caller identification information and as a result will not be blocked by the system of patent application Ser. No. 09/122,484. Other telemarketers may use meaningless caller identification information or caller identification information which may be deceptive, for example in a fund raising cold call. Even though the called party receives the standard caller identification, the called party may unknowingly or inadvertently answer the call. This can result in unwanted interruptions of the called party and limits the ability of the called party to manage incoming calls and privacy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,053 discloses a service in which a subscriber is given a special ring announcing an incoming call. When the subscriber answers the call, the caller is identified to the subscriber without connecting the caller to the subscriber, for example, by recording the caller announcing his identity in response to a prompt. The recording is played to the caller who has the option, without being connected to the caller, of accepting the call, refusing the call or directing the call to an automated answering system such as voice mail, for example, by a keypad entry. A caller list can be created enabling preferred callers to reach the subscriber without being screened and a refusal list can generated for automatically blocking calls from disfavored callers.
However, the disclosed system fails to disclose handling an incoming call for which the standard caller identification information can not be provided. All calls are given the same treatment of suspending the call before connecting the call to the subscriber. While a refusal list may be established, entries must be entered manually. No automatic processing of calls for which standard caller identification information cannot be provided is available.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved method and apparatus for providing enhanced caller identification information in a telecommunication system.